This report is produced by Office of the UN Resident Coordinator in collaboration with humanitarian partners. It covers the period from 1 November to 30 November 2016. The next issue will be published around 31 December 2016.

BEIJING, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA (8 December 2016) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of $150 million for a project to raise living standards in Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province, through a project that will address flood and environmental risks.

Between June and September 2016, over 17,000 people in 16 countries were asked to share their views on a range of issues relating to war – in the People on War survey. The results are both reassuring and alarming.

CHENGDU, Dec. 1 (Xinhua) -- A catastrophic earthquake leveled Wolong Primary School in southwest China's Sichuan Province in 2008, but a rebuilt campus that brought comfort and modernity to students living deep in the mountains served as a small silver lining.

MANILA, 1 December 2016 - On World AIDS Day, the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific calls on Member States to accelerate efforts to end AIDS by 2030. By providing for HIV prevention, testing, and treatment to all to reach the 2030 goal, countries will be making a smart investment that will avert AIDS-related deaths and new HIV infections, especially among children.

The Government of the People’s Republic of China has contributed US$ 300,000 to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in support of the Agency’s core programmes and services for Palestine refugees, including education, health, relief and social services and camp improvement.

The People’s Republic of China turned over on Tuesday an additional cash donation worth P35,000,000 to the Philippines through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to help fund recovery and rehabilitation efforts of the Department for calamity-affected communities.
China has earlier donated P60,000,000 on November 7 to help the affected families of Typhoon Lawin which struck the northern part of Luzon last month.

23 November 2016, LONDON – The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) welcomes a move by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to add the threats posed by natural and human-induced hazards to its widely-respected country analyses.

The EIU is the world’s leading provider of country intelligence, with its timely, reliable and impartial research offering governments, institutions and businesses the evidence base that they need to set strategy and make critical decisions.

Fighting on Sunday in northern Shan State’s Muse District between the Burmese army and ethnic armed groups compelled hundreds of local civilians to flee across the border to China, according to local sources. Unconfirmed reports indicate there may have been civilian fatalities as well.

The quest of the last 15 years to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) taught us that Global Goals can motivate and help sustain leaps in human progress. It also taught us that the specifics matter. In some places, the MDGs became a widely-recognized, consistent and important driver of local progress; in others, the role and impact of the MDGs was more ambiguous. A lot depended on way the MDGs were implemented: if local change agents made them meaningful locally; if local leaders drew on their legitimacy and visibility; if they were employed to solve real-life problems etc.

BEIJING - The Government of the People’s Republic of China has made a contribution of US$10 million towards the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP) emergency operations currently supporting El Niño drought-affected people in Ethiopia and Somalia. The Chinese Minister of Commerce, Gao Hucheng, signed an agreement with WFP’s Executive Director, Ertharin Cousin, during the UN General Assembly in New York. Earlier, the Government of China also signed a US$2 million agreement with WFP to support its emergency operations for Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan.